


A Deal With the Devil

by FeelsBad



Category: Hazbin Hotel (Web Series)
Genre: Comedy, Daddy Issues, Deal with a Devil, Demonic Possession, Gen, Hijinks & Shenanigans, not just comedy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-04
Updated: 2020-03-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:13:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21675823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FeelsBad/pseuds/FeelsBad
Summary: A human owns a dresser that he doesn’t know has a natural connection to Hell and one day comes face to face with Lucifer himself. Lucifer offers a deal to him, he wants a vacation in the human world but needs someone to keep, at the very least, a minimum eye on the things going on in Hell.Unfortunately, Lucifer can’t leave Hell himself without taking control of a body, which is where our “hero” comes in. Switch bodies with the Devil himself for the duration of his vacation with his lovely demon wife and he is allowed to use a fraction of his powers while he briefly rules Hell in his stead.Unfortunately for the human, he has no idea how to go about this and needs to figure out how to not turn this into a huge mess as he bumbles his way around.
Relationships: Charlie Magne/Vaggie, Lilith/Lucifer (Hazbin Hotel)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 74
Collections: Hazbin Fiction





	1. The Deal with the Devil

**Author's Note:**

> This first chapter is a small beginning to this story, mostly just testing the waters to see if I really like it.
> 
> Also, if there is any formatting mistakes I apologize as I’m doing all of this on my phone and I’ll fix anything I come across when I reach a computer.

There is a whole thing in literature and life about “making a deal with the devil”, something best shown in a piece of literature called  _ Faust _ . Sadly for me at the time, I’m not really able to process cultural motifs or remember things about some old story that I hadn’t read about since my college days when I’m trying to play video games in my messy bedroom and ignore the rest of the world. So when I look into the mirror that was attached to my dresser in one side of my room and see what looks like a clown grinning way too widely, I think that it must be some sort of drug slipped into that beer I just had. Because really, what else could it be?

  
“Haha! Why I think you’ll do nicely!” said the clown as he twirled his apple tipped cane inside the mirror. The spinning cane didn’t really fit in the boundaries of the mirror, one end often disappearing when it reached the edge.

“What?” came the elegant reply that I am so known for as I stared stupidly into the mirror connected to the antique Victorian-era dresser that clashed horribly against the modern look of my apartment room, not fully comprehending what was going on. The dresser really wasn’t my taste but it was an old family heirloom that had been well taken care of and it would look nice if placed in a properly themed residence. Something for the future generations of my family I suppose.

If it was even possible the not-clown’s grin grew even wider when he heard my reply, the sharp teeth forming that wide grin making me uneasy. He didn’t say anything as he leaned closer to me and gave me a once over saying, “Not fat, in good shape. Appearance above average…” He snickered and jumped up and down in joy, on the final jump he landed and spread his arms wide dramatically, “Oh you are perfect! On my first try too! I could almost sing with glee!”

“What?”

The clown finally noticed I wasn’t getting any of this, “Oh, dear me I haven’t introduced myself yet! Where are my manners?” He gave a small bow, “The name’s Lucifer, king of Hell!”

“Nice to meet you, your majesty,” I replied, not believing that this could actually be happening. “What are y-” I paused to burp, “-you doing in my room?”

“I’m here to make a deal with you!” Lucifer swung his hands above his head, fireworks going off behind him.

“But I don’t want to sell my soul…” I cautiously mumbled.

He waved me off and leaned forward, “Nonono! I don’t need your soul. I’ll get that when you die. I’m here to find a place to vacation at!”

“Vacation?” I asked, glad that I’m not about to lose my soul but a bit annoyed that he just assumes that I’ll be going to Hell when I kick the bucket.

“Quite right! You see things will soon need so much attention in Hell, and with the next cleanse coming up I can already imagine the headache to come. Plus, I need a change of scenery every now and then, I’ve seen nearly everything in Hell now.” He sighed dramatically, “So, I figured the wife and I could use some R&R up on Earth. See what you mortals have been up to over the centuries and get some fresh air.”

I blinked as I thought about what he just said, I mean I guess it sounded fine but I still had one question, “So, who will run Hell while you’re gone?”

Lucifer still grinned and snapped his fingers to give me the old finger guns, “That’s where you come in!”

I pointed a finger at myself, “Me?”

“That’s right! Because of some silly rules made up a long time ago, I can’t actually leave Hell as myself. However, if we switch bodies I can get around that and my wife has no such restrictions placed on her. Our deal will last…” He paused to think it over, rolling a hand, “let’s say a couple of months, at least, and when that time is up we return to our own bodies as if nothing ever happened! Or we could extended the vacation if both of us agree. I’ll even let you have access to some of my power to play around with during all of this, what do you say!”

Considering that this was probably not actually happening, as an atheist I don’t believe in God or Satan or anything, I decided to play along with this strange hallucination for now. I mean, what’s the worst that could happen here? I shrugged, “Sure, why not. Do we shake on it or something?”

Lucifer held his hand out and I slowly stuck my hand out to touch the mirror, not wanting to slam my hand into it and get cut. Just because I think this isn’t real doesn’t mean that I'm going to hurt myself. Right as my hand was about to touch the mirror Lucifer’s hand shot out of it with the mirror rippling like water and grabbed my own in a steel-like grip. I stumbled back in shock at the sensation of touching something that felt real but I couldn’t break free of his grasp, it was like an iron vice that tried its best to crush my hand into a paste. An eerie red glow came from where our hands were touching and I felt a pull from my center when Lucifer’s eyes began glowing that same color so brightly there was no other color left.

Then I passed out.

When I came to, I was sitting in a well furnished and wealthy looking office with a large window overlooking a city that had a huge glowing pentagram floating over it. The chair I was sitting on was plush and comfortable, high class, and could roll and spin around. The desk looked like, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, a rich mahogany desk that had various apple related designs along its legs and sides. The desk itself only had a few pens, papers, and, oddly enough, a laptop.

Hell didn’t sound like the place that had modern amenities, where was the fire and brimstone? The around the clock torture? The screams?

The rest of the office had various pieces of furniture and several bookcases. On either side of the desk, hung on the walls were paintings of the man that called himself Lucifer, a beautiful blonde woman, and another young woman in between the two. The younger blonde woman had a very close resemblance to Lucifer which led me to believe that the three of them were a family and the woman in the middle was the daughter of Lucifer and the other woman.

“Does that mean she is technically the antichrist?” I said to myself out loud. I paused for a brief moment as I let the sound of my voice settle itself in my brain. And a moment of clarity broke through when I realized, “That… is  _ not _ my voice.”

It was the voice of the guy that introduced himself as Lucifer. An introduction that I was starting to accept as fact and not a part of some hallucination. Now was the time to actually take a look at myself.

I looked down at my seated form to eye the surprisingly colorful suit, I hadn’t really noticed it when I was talking to Lucifer in my room as I had thought him a hallucination. It was a bit too bright for my taste but I wasn’t about to go and change the man’s entire wardrobe, that would be way too much work on my end and it would be easier to just suck it up. After looking over my suit I finally noticed the weight on my head and sent a pale, nearly white, hand up to investigate.

“Right, it was that wide hat he had on his head,” I muttered to myself. I nearly smacked myself and thought,  _ “Learn what I look like now later, figure out what I need to do right now. I can’t let anyone figure out I’m not the real Lucifer, I do  _ **_not_ ** _ want to deal with a demon rebellion.” _

“But how the Hell do I act like someone I don’t even know about?” I asked myself as I leaned on the desk with my head in my hands. After a bit of moping I looked back down at the desk through my fingers and noticed that the paper sitting in the middle of the desk had some writing on it.

“Maybe they’re instructions…” I desperately hoped, needing some answers about how to move forward.

Then the door to the office knocked loudly  and urgently and I swore to myself at the interruption. I wasn’t prepared yet!


	2. Who Are These People?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I have no idea who the demons with Lucifer were in the beginning of the show. But eh, guess they don’t really matter right now anyway.

My name is Arthur Cox. I may have forgotten to introduce myself earlier and typically one should start off by describing themselves before they get into things. Name, looks, location they are currently in, bank details, as of this moment all of those things I listed matter a lot in my current situation. I can’t use my real name without causing some sort of commotion. Do to a deal I may or may not end up regretting I am inhabiting the body of the devil himself so I don’t look anything like myself, I’m just glad I still have all three fingers on my hands instead of something weird like four. My location is Hell and my bank situation could be better described as being in the middle of the Sahara, bone dry and desolate… well, maybe my empty bank account is not important but you get the idea.

Right now I had to focus on not outing myself as not being who these people think I am. Currently I was in a very awkward, from my perspective, situation sitting in a fancy chair surrounded by demons I don’t even know the names of in a dark room waiting for something to happen. My only comfort was the slick ass apple cane I saw Lucifer twirling around in my mirror back home that I found I could summon at will if I just thought about it appearing, and a smartphone tucked inside his inner suit pocket.

I’ve been amusing myself by making the cane appear and disappear at will until someone actually says something once this extermination thing is over. On the plus side, doing this gets me a feel for some sort of strange energy, feeling, whatever, which I can only assume is the demon magic Lucy said I was allowed to do. So hey, maybe I can upgrade to streetside magic tricks soon.

Backtracking a tiny bit, not long ago some random demon servant knocked on the door to m-Lucifer’s office and said that the yearly extermination, whatever that was, was going to start soon and I needed to sit with some bigwigs of Hell during the whole thing. I honestly could think of a billion different things I’d rather do than that, but right now I don’t have much of a choice. Whatever this extermination was didn’t sound pleasant and I did not want to be a part of it.

Thankfully, we did not need to go far. This meeting place was in the building we were already in, only a few floors down and on the other side. As I had no idea where everything was I was silently thankful for the imp (I think?) servant that was leading me around. I’ve had to keep up a nervous grin the entire time, I remember that Lucifer didn’t drop his smile for a single second when we were talking so that was probably something important to his personality. I don’t want to attract any undue attention on my back right now and if I can make it through this little shindig then I need to focus my efforts on finding out everything about Lucifer himself and demon powers.

Let it not be said that I was anything but being unable to cover my own ass.

We stopped in front of some door and the servant held it open for me with a deferential bow, which was something that I could get used to. “Shit, I’m going to get spoiled rotten by the end of this I can just tell,” I thought to myself as I entered the rather dark room. It wasn’t pitch black as I could see a few candles were lit on a table off to one side of the room, but even so I did not find it hard to see at all. Something maybe to do with my new body perhaps.

“Why your majesty, it’s always a pleasure when we get together like this,” said one of the demons sitting in a tall chair. He had a whole spider motif going on and a pretty cool hat. He was also a lot taller than I was, even sitting down I could tell.

I forced my grin a little wider, silently praising Lucifer for having a face that can have such a wide grin, “I wouldn’t miss it for the world! Who else am I to share this somber event with?”

I have no clue what this extermination thing is all about, but extermination sounded bad so this couldn’t be a good thing, right?

“Somb-,” spider demon trailed off before his eyes, all four, widened, “Oh! Oh, you are such a joker, Lucifer! Hohoho!” He held a hand to his mouth and started doing the sort of laugh that only the extremely and stupidly affluent can get away with doing. He even set his wine glass down on the small table next to him as he laughed so richly.

 _“Okay… Somber is not the tone we’re going for here,”_ I inwardly chastised myself for the blunder. This was Hell, shit apparently works differently down here. Luckily I had an escape thanks to chortles over there, just let them think that was a joke and act like that was the intent all along. So, I just laughed along with spider demon and sat down in the closest seat I could find.

“Your majesty,” a new voice started, female this time.

I looked over to where the new person was talking from and saw a demon woman, the first I’ve seen in person so far, with really large hands. I mean, these couldn’t even be called hands anymore, they were more like claws. I’ll be damned if she was even able to pick anything up with those things.

I waved for her to go ahead, the apple cane I saw Lucifer hold not even an hour ago and that I accidentally made appear on the way here disappearing with the act. I ended up spending most of her speech discreetly trying to get the cane to come back to me and mostly ignoring her. A loud thud knocked me back into the present and refocused my full attention on what was going on around me.

“I will not let you of all demons speak to me about only caring about money you fucking insect,” the long hand demon woman yelled at the spider guy. “These damn exterminations keep killing off my skilled workers. Even if they’re random in their targeting this can’t keep happening. I can already see next year’s profits not being as high, and I got lucky last year.”

I noticed a shadow move around off to the side, another demon was sitting around in the shadows just watching the two argue. The shadows looked a bit unnatural over him so I assumed it was a power of some kind and he was just hiding himself for whatever reason. Maybe it’s a bad hair day.

Well, since he doesn’t want to talk I’ll just ignore him. Much better for me.

“Arachnid, actually. And just get new ones,” spider demon said, rolling his four eyes at big hands as he took a sip of wine. “What, do you think we’re going to run out of sinners and demons anytime soon? Give me a break.”

“It’s not about being able to have an endless supply of workers,” big hand lady hissed at spider guy, jabbing a long pointy finger at him. “It’s about keeping workers that know what they’re doing so they don’t waste time learning and cut into my profits. Fucking heaven wants to kill some of the useless sinners down here, fine, but god damn it I’m tired of my things being destroyed!”

 _“Aren’t these guys supposed to be hundreds of years old?”_ I mentally asked myself. _“This woman sounds like a child.”_

“Well I’m just not sure what you want his majesty to do about this. Last I checked he denied your request last year and even if he did accept he doesn’t run heaven anyway and the angels wouldn’t listen to him any more than they’d listen to a random sinner.” Spider demon then snorted in amusement over his wine glass as he took another sip, “Hell, I’d bet they’d just target you more out of spite. Heaven acts like they’re oh so righteous and pure but they’re more like us demons than they think. Just with more arrogance and self importance.”

 _“Ah, I think I’ve figured out how the cane works,”_ I joyfully thought to myself as the apple cane reappeared in my hand. I ignored most of the conversation those two had, only keeping half an ear out to catch a bit here and there. I guess if she asks me directly I’ll just have to deny it, that’s what Lucifer did in the past, apparently, and I don’t care enough about her problems anyway. Nope, I’m not touching any problem, even with a ten foot pole.

Before she had the chance to ask me anything a loud repeating gong echoed over the city, like one of those clock towers when they strike the hour.

“It seems like it’s time,” spider demon said. “Best we put this little argument on hold until the angels go away my dear.”

Big hand lady just harrumphed and sat down with her eyes closed on a small couch across from spider demon. She kept her arms crossed and scowled into her eyelids as a frown took over her face while spider demon just kept drinking his wine. Then there was a great tearing sound, like sheets of paper being torn, and the dull thumps of heavy wings that was soon followed by the screams of pain and anger. I… found it distressingly easy to ignore those screams, like I didn’t care that people, no matter the fact that they were demons, were being killed in droves.

Upon learning this I decided I could go for a glass of something strong right about now to forget this, I have no idea where this part of me came from. But sadly inebriation isn't going to help me keep my cover right now, better just keep practicing making my cane appear and disappear while I play with Lucifer’s cellphone that I had just found. I can use this time to learn about a few things in Hell, and repress the fact that I can now ignore the screams of people dying outside without care.


	3. So this is Charlie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The news segment is always a favorite of mine in the pilot but I figured I’d save the song part for next chapter. I’m not going to put all of it in though, that’s just padding the chapter full of nothing remarkable.

I take back anything I might have said about Hell and it having modern amenities.

The phone I was meddling around with let me figure out a few things about Hell, like the names of Lucifer’s wife and daughter and the very basics of how some demons use their magic or powers. I wasn’t sure how well those basics translated to me since I was technically in the body of an angel and not a demon, and I was just recently a human. Plus, everything I’ve read about it just says it’s intent based and power is different among demons.

Something about making deals, I haven’t a clue. To be honest, I don’t even need to ever worry about power since I’m just borrowing Lucifer’s. I just need to practice actually using it.

The extermination had been going on for a few hours and the screaming had just begun going down, I assumed that the whole thing was wrapping up now. A good thing too because I wanted to hurry up and get down to practicing magic, because who wouldn’t want to use magic when all their life they thought it was nothing but a myth or just fancy tricks?

The other demons, who I still don’t know the names of (and the only search I did was “famous spider demon” and it just showed me some porn actor which really shows the priorities Hell has), and I sat in silence sipping wine while things died down (get it?). I didn’t hear anything now and was starting to feel uncomfortable in this silence. I don’t do long, eerie silences. Then after ten minutes of agonizing wait I heard the sounds of fireworks and I looked up from my phone in confusion. I was not expecting to hear fireworks, usually those were meant for celebrations.

Then again, maybe this is a time for celebration for the demons that survived.

I did my best to cross one leg over the other and look as menacing as possible with my cane in hand. Big hands lady had a scary look on her face as she walked up to the heavy curtains blocking the view from the window and I did not want anything to do with that. Looking scary might be the key to keeping myself unharmed and judging by the faint red glow of my eyes that I can see reflecting from a mirror on one of the walls, it must be working. Spider guy just sipped his wine as our female companion acted as dramatic as possible while she flings aside the curtains blocking our sight from the city, our third shadow concealed companion was standing off to the side of me for some reason, staring out the window.

Perhaps he just wanted a better look?

 _“The hell is going on? Why are these people acting all dramatic now?”_ I silently asked myself, worried about what was going on while I tried to enjoy the bit of fireworks exploding over the city that I had just learned from my phone was called Pentagram City. A little uninspired for a name, but hey if the shoe fits I guess.

“Hoho, it seems that daughter of yours is really going all out with her pyromancy this year your majesty,” spider guy said.

“I suppose she is,” I replied, grabbing hold of the wine glass I had floating next to me and taking a small, measured sip. It was a good wine and this is a great way to practice magic, it’s a lot easier to use than you’d think once I figured how to bring out the magic.

“If I’m not mistaken she has that interview with 666 News later today, correct?”

“I believe so,” I said, despite not having a clue if that was right or not. I grinned and idly spun my cane around, “I might give it a watch.” I actually meant that, it would be a great way to figure her out. As much as browsing the internet of Hell was entertaining I don’t think I should be taking everything from it at face value.

Much like the human internet.

Big hands lady scoffed, “That little brat is just going to go on about that little pet project of hers. Not worth wasting my time listening to the farce she’s trying to sell. I’m surprised that you’re going to listen to her spiel that bullshit around, you never agreed with what she believed.”

 _“And what farce is that supposed to be?”_ I thought to myself, not having a single clue to what she was going on about as everything she said flew right over my head. My grin was becoming a little bit more forced when I realized I might have stepped into territory that might reveal my secret.

I just shrugged and managed to keep my grin up, “Who knows, I think that things might get a little entertaining during Charlie’s interview.”

Hands lady sighed, “Well, whatever. I’m not about to get between whatever it is you’re doing. At this point I should just bear your eccentrics.”

“Hoho, I’d have thought you’d have learned by now my dear,” spider guy interjected.

“Shove it,” with that Hands lady crossed her arms and scowled.

Spider guy set his glass down on the table and moved to get up, he was taller than I initially thought. Made me silently grumble about Lucifer’s short height, I was rather tall when I was a human and I miss my height. He cracked his neck and said, “It’s time for me to be off now. I only intended to stick around while the extermination was going on, I do have a business to run after all and a few deaths aren’t going to stop it.” He bowed to me in a rather aristocratic manner, “We should do this again sometime your majesty.”

 _“Really? Is this what you consider fun? We didn’t even do anything!”_ I mentally screamed, confused and irritated. This was seriously a waste of time, what was the point of gathering together only to quietly sit around in a room listening to the pain filled screaming of dying demons?

“Sounds like fun,” I forced through my pointy teeth, a wide fake grin on my face as I told the biggest lie I’d ever make in my life. I could go through a number of things that I’d rather not do and they still would beat any of this.

I don’t like wasted time!

“I’ll head off too I suppose,” hands lady said. “Might as well get an idea of the damage this year.” She looked over to where the concealed demon was and, “And what about you- oh you’re already gone.”

_“Holy shit when did that guy leave?!”_

I carefully hid my surprise (I’m glad that my mouth was already in a wide grin and my eyes followed suit) and figured this would be a great time to falsely flex all over them. I fixed a smug toothy grin on my face, leaned against an arm rest and asked while I took a sip from my wine glass, “You didn’t notice?”

Hands lady’s face turned red as she turned away and coughed into her massive clawed fist, even spider guy was shifting the spider on his chest around nervously as he tried to look anywhere but at me. This was adorable. Who’d have thought demons could act like this? So human?

Spider guy cleared his throat, “Hmm, yes well. That thing, I’ll go and do it now.”

_“His speech manner changed, I guess it was an act?”_

“Yes, I’d better hurry as well,” hands lady added.

I couldn’t help the chuckle that came out of my mouth, which only spurred them to walk faster out of the room. I couldn’t help it, it was funny. I might be getting used to this place if the fact that these obviously powerful people didn’t elect any fear from me to the point I was comfortable to rib them. Really, I’d have thought I’d have a little bit more of a freak out when I realized Hell was real. After all, I can’t say that I was always some level headed asshole, stoic to the point of being an emotionless stick.

Well, whatever, it doesn’t matter. Not freaking out is a good thing right?

***

I finally found myself back in the office, a bit drained from the hours of silence and nothing that I had to endure. Is this what being royalty or aristocracy is about? Mindless meetings and hanging out with people that amount to basically nothing but announcing we’re rich and have loads of free time? Or is this just what being in politics is about?

“At first I thought this extermination thing was what Lucifer was trying to avoid. But now I know he was just trying to get away from those assholes…” I muttered to myself as I sat down behind the desk, annoyed.

Whatever, I have to focus now. My-no, _Lucifer’s_ daughter is set to go on her news interview later today and I want to make sure I am at least a little prepared with whatever Lucifer left me on his desk before I watched it. If I’m going to be stuck in the body of a father I should make sure that I don’t ruin anything between the family members. Supporting his daughter’s dreams is something a father does, right?

I picked up the paper from the desk to look over as I lifted up a remote I found on a small coffee table between the door and the desk. I pressed a button and the large flatscreen tv sitting on one of the walls turned on, nothing seemed to be any different about television and remotes here and I had no trouble finding which station the news was going to appear on.

I set the remote down on the desk as the tv blared out some background noise as I read over the contents of the paper.

_Dear Human,_

_As I’m sure you’re fully aware of now you are now residing in my body while I am inside of yours for a couple of months as part of our deal. Let us take the time to enjoy ourselves and get to know what we both experience in our lives. There are no restrictions to what you can and can not do. However, as a matter of personal pride I made certain that you are able to sing and play music as well as I am able to. I spent centuries gaining and flaunting those skills and I refuse to look a fool if you fail to use them as well as I can. You are not able to purposely fail when using instruments or singing. Here is a list of every instrument I can play:..._

“So there are restrictions,” I grumbled as I skipped past most of the instruments, impressed at his dedication to music.

_I am not going to tell you how I act, figure that out for yourself. Hehehe._

“Bastard… he actually wrote that hehehe?”

_Also, due to the nature of our deal, your soul is irreversibly bound to Hell when you die._

**“WHAT?!”** I roared in anger and smacked the desk with a fist, leaving a decent sized dent in the wood. I heard the cracking of glass behind me but I paid it no mind. “That mother _fucker_!” I scowled down at the paper and gritted my teeth as I read further.

 _Sorry not sorry. You really should have not made a deal with the literal devil._ I tsked in annoyance as I could feel his smugness even just reading that. _To be fair, it is mostly because you allowed me to leave Hell and agreed to link yourself with me thus being able to use some of my powers. The assholes up top would consider your soul too tainted to enter heaven now that you’re associated even a little bit with me._

_If I was just some demon you made a deal with then you’d have been able to repent through a lifetime of religious service. Or not, they are really strict about their entrance requirements and it’s why Hell is so overpopulated. But it’s too late to worry over it now so make sure to make the best of this situation._

_Love,_  
_Lucifer, King of Hell_

I leaned back in my seat and gently set the paper back down on the desk, taking a deep breath to calm myself back down. I pried the hand that gripped the dented, slightly smoking, edge of the desk off, slightly shaking in a strange mixture of rage, adrenaline, and an attempt to come to acceptance with what I was told. As much of an asshole Lucifer is I am reluctantly admitting that he is right when there isn’t anything I can do about this. If heaven is as strict as I am guessing then I might as well make the most of all of this.

That sort of revelation actually took a while to reach, I spent most of it just sort of staring at the ceiling.

By the time I was mostly out of my funk I heard the sound of the news station come on. I looked over as the “666 News” logo appeared across the screen burning and revealed a tall big headed woman and a smaller blonde haired guy with a gas mask for a face and the typical hairstyle of a news anchor. I moved from my spot at the desk and sat down in the small fancy sofa across from the tv, this office was way larger than needed but I guess that comes with being rich and a king.

_“Good afternoon, I’m Katie Killjoy.”_

“Man, she really needs to eat something,” I said to myself as I tried to relax into the sofa, waving my hands around and flexing my magic, trying to summon things from thin air. I read on my phone that powerful demons could do that and I really needed some alcohol and nachos right now.

 _“And I’m Tom Trench!”_ He playfully smacked his desk. _“Chaos out of Pentagram City today as the turf war is raging on the West Side. Between notable Kingpin Sir Pentious and self proclaimed spunky powerhouse Cherri Bomb!”_

_“That’s right Tom. After the recent extermination many areas are now up for grabs!”_ Katie made a grabbing motion with her sharp nail covered hands. The picture cut to a viewing of the battle, _“Demons all over Hell are already duking it out to gain new territory.”_

_“Those two seem to be really going at it,”_ Tom added. 

_“It looks like they’re fighting tooth and nail for that hotspot!”_ Katie punctuated that by pulling out a tooth and nail and subsequently eating it. 

“Ew,” I grimaced at the sight of her eating that. 

_“And I’d sure like to nail her hot spot huhue!”_ Tom with a pervy look on the surprising expressful gas mask of a face. 

Katie fake laughed, _“You are a limp dick jackass Tom. Or should I say,”_ she then poured coffee on Tom’s crotch who proceeded to correctly writhe in pain, _“no dick. Coming up next is an exclusive interview with the daughter of Hell’s own head honcho who’s here to discuss her brand new passion project. All that and more after the break. Suck it up you little bi-!”_

When it cut to commercial break I couldn’t help but laugh, the news of Hell was far more entertaining than the news back up on earth and they don’t even censor themselves. If the news on earth was even half as entertaining then I’d actually consider watching it. I needed that laugh too, I was starting to feel a little bit better now and I can’t wait to see how this Charlie girl acts. 

_“Welcome back! So, Charlotte,”_ Katie’s neck creepily broke during that welcoming. 

_“It’s Charlie,”_ said girl nervously grinned back. 

_“Whatever. Tell us about this new passion project you’ve been consistently pestering our news station about!”_ Katie clicked her pen rather harshly as she forced that whole sentence out of her mouth. 

“Man, she is really pissed,” I said to myself. “But should she really be talking to royalty like that?” 

_“Well, as most of you know I was born here in Hell and growing up I always try and see the good in everything around me. Hell is my home and you are my people,”_ Charlie wiped a bit of blood that landed on her face off as she said that. 

“You… are too precious for this place,” I muttered as I continued to watch this woman on the screen. 

Charlie seemed to be looking at something or someone for support before she continued, _“We… we just went through another extermination. We lost so many souls and it breaks my heart to see my people be slaughtered every year. No one is even given a chance!”_ Charlie punctuated that by slamming the desk and waking up Katie that had been falling asleep next to her. 

Charlie got up from behind the desk and moved out to stand in front of the crowd that was around inside the studio. She was getting a little passionate now. _“I can’t stand idly by while the place I live is subjected to such violence! So, I’ve been thinking. Isn’t there a more humane way to hinder overpopulation here in Hell? Perhaps there can be an alternative way to change souls through… redemption? Well I think yes! So that’s what this project aims to achieve! Ladies and gentlemen I present the first of its kind, a hotel that rehabilitates sinners!”_ She finished off her little speech by excitedly throwing her hands in the air with a big grin on her face. 

“Well then,” I started, stopping my attempts to summon booze as my widen eyes a bit with shock when I finally knew her goals, “I was not expecting that.” 

What followed that was the longest, most awkward pause I had ever seen before Charlie tried to sell the hotel idea more, _“I figured it would serve a purpose, you know, a place to work for redemption… yaaaaayy.”_

Judging by her expression nobody in the studio seemed to be buying what she was selling. _“Look, everyone has something good deep down inside, I know you do,”_ Charlie put her head in her hand and looked down briefly before she smirked and seemed to get some sort of idea. _“Maybe I’m not getting through to you…”_ was the last thing she said before she did something that blew my mind. 

She fucking _sang a song_. 


	4. Natural Acting

With a snap of her fingers, I suddenly saw this Charlie girl sitting on top of a piano. With the sound of that piano accompanying her and the brief sight of a small goat thing playing it, she began her song.

“ _I have a dream~_

_I’m here to tell~_

_About a wonderful fantastic new hotel!~_ ”

What followed next week was an absolute clusterfuck of physics and reality that I had to forcefully swallow down as some bullshit created by demon magic after my body eventually stopped moving and dancing to the beat of the song. Don’t get me wrong, I thought it was a good song and all, really catchy and the way my body moved did reinforce the fact Lucifer did apparently have a big love for music. Considering the sheer disbelief of her goal by the other demons and the antagonistic nature they normally had I could not accept that this was at all staged, she’d have been mocked straight out of the studio after she finished presenting her idea. But, well, that meant that Charlie could create musical numbers alongside casually warping the fabric of reality to bring forth random scenes to accompany it.

And if this girl could do _that_ on a whim, then what the everloving Hell could _I_ do if I tried?

I stared down at the new temporary hands that I’m going to have for the next few months, they were glowing with the magic that I can bring forth at will after the constant practice I’ve been doing during this news segment. Using the magic was getting easier and easier to do over the past couple of hours since my arrival like my mind was catching up with this body and what it could do, I could feel the magic everywhere now. Before it was this dull sensation in the back of my mind that I had entirely ignored but over time that sensation grew. However, hand in hand with that sense of strength was that realization that I had real, tangible power in my grasp now. That crazy bastard gave the magical equivalent of the keys to a high powered and high-performance sports car to me, a new driver with zero training and zero time behind the wheel.

I did get a glimpse at another form that Charlie might have, more demonic and a big suggestion that the demons around me might be hiding their true forms. It made me curious as to what other form I might have but it’s something not that high on my priority list right now.

In my brief musing, I missed a bit of the news when I looked back up, only knowing that everyone in the studio was laughing hysterically.

_“Oh, and who might that be?”_ Katie Killjoy condescendingly asked Charlie, I had no idea what they were talking about now.

_“Oh, just someone named… Angel Dust,”_ Charlie smugly replied after inspecting her nails as if the name and person weren’t important.

_“The porn star?”_ Tom Trench asked at the same time as I did to the air, I only vaguely recognized the name after trying to find out who that important spider dude was during the extermination. He is literally the top search for spider demon, fucking demons I swear…

_“You fucking would, Tom,”_ Katie said, scratching her nails down the desk. _“In any case, that’s not even an accomplishment. I’m sure you can get that hooker to do anything with enough booger-sugar and lube.”_

Charlie got up in her face and listed three things on her hand with a smug look, _“Oh, I beg to differ. He’s been behaved, clean, and out of trouble for two weeks now.”_

I sighed and rubbed the side of my head, “Don’t tempt fate like that Charlie…”

I snapped my fingers and pointed at the TV just at an announcer said, _“Breaking News!”_

Without care, Katie put and hand up to the side of her head and grinned viciously. She violently pushed Charlie out of her personal space and said to the camera, _“We are receiving word that a new player has entered the ongoing turf war! Let’s go to the live feed!”_

I rose a brow, “The fuck is with the eggs?”

_“Oh shit,”_ Charlie said, realization on her face.

_“Oh, shit indeed! It looks like who just joined the battle is none other than porn actor Angel Dust! What a juicy coincidence! You must feel really stupid right now!”_ Then she and Tom laughed and jazz handed to the camera while singing, _“Ratings!”_

_“Don’t look at this!”_ Charlie failed to cover up the screen showing the battle.

“Come on,” I said to the TV, raising a fist into the air and getting up from my seat. “Don’t show weakness! Punch the bitch! Don’t take shit from other demons!”

_“Well, it sure looks like your project is dead on arrival. Tell us, how does it feel to be such a total failure!”_ Katie glared down at Charlie before turning around to really start laughing at her expense, really drives in that nail.

_“Oh, yeah? Well, how does it feel that I’ve got your pen, huh? Bitch?”_ Charlie insulted. Katie and Tom stared at her in disbelief that she did that before Tom took the chance to get out of the way.

“Needs a bit of work but…” I started. “Wow, that Katie chick went from zero to a hundred.” She did, in fact, overreact to such a small insult by transforming and adding an extra set of eyes and two sets of arms.

What came next was the biggest catfight I had ever seen. On live television no less. I grinned as I started to get a bit too into the fight, “Come on! Come on! Left hook, left hook! No! Your other left! Holy shit yes! Set the guy on fire so he can’t help! Damn girl, you’ve got a mean haymaker!”

Jesus Christ, Hell is fucking amazing with its entertainment!

I managed to calm down a bit and threw myself back onto the couch as I waved my hand at the coffee table in front of me, trying to summon food and alcohol. To my surprise, it worked this time! The alcohol at least. I shrugged my shoulders and took what I could get, shoveling several chocolate candies that were sitting in a bowl on the table in my mouth and cracking open the bottle of “Cheap Booze” that I made appear out of thin air as I enjoyed the rest of the news.

Not too long after the fight started another girl joined the battle on the screen, some gray-skinned girl with a ton of white hair and a red bow who proceeded to tackle Katie and knock them both behind the desk. Charlie let off a war cry and jumped off the desk with her elbow raised and I snickered at the move.

The new girl got kicked off over the desk and into where I’m pretty sure the audience was and Katie and Charlie got back into their own wrestling match. With screams of frustration and anger into each other’s face during their battle, and the cameraman focusing on them to try and get the best angle, Tom coming through the field of vision screaming _“Why won’t anyone help me!”_ while still on fire caught me off guard.

I threw a hand over the top of the couch and knocked back another mouthful of booze, “This is great!”

Sadly all good things came to an end and I was left with nothing else to do when the news was over. After a good while of watching stupid, significantly uninteresting things on Hell’s television networks I rubbed my chin in thought and snapped my fingers when one came to me, I’m a father now so I should tell that Charlie girl that I think her fight on the news was great! I stuck my hand into the inside pocket of my jacket and pulled out the phone Lucifer left me with.

I scrolled through the contacts with a finger, “Let’s see here…”

I saw a contact that said “Charlotte “Charlie” Magne” and figured that was the correct one since some of the portraits with Lucifer’s family said “The Magne Family” on the frames. With a tap, I pushed the call button and brought the phone up to my ear… oh fuck, I don’t have ears anymore…

The phone rang a bit and then it was answered. I briefly heard what seemed like the beginning of a small argument between two people. _“Uh, hey... Dad,”_ Charlie’s soft, insecure, and hesitant voice came from the other side, most of it centered around the word “dad”. The argument I could barely hear, yet sounded interesting, between the other two people instantly stopping.

I briefly locked up in fear, a forced and frozen grin on my face as I just had a thought about what the everloving **fuck** I was thinking. I don’t know this girl! She knows me, or at least the body I’m currently taking for a joy ride for the next several months. If anybody in this damned place could figure out that I wasn’t actually Lucifer then it would be her! And I can’t do anything about it now since I blindly followed my whims and called her without thinking a fucking second about it!

_“Uh, dad?”_ Charlie said over the phone, more uncertainly.

I shook my head to clear my thoughts, now wasn’t the time to space out. I better just make the most out of this.

“Sorry about that!” I managed to keep my voice jovial while adjusting my ridiculously large popped collar with a finger. Just play it off, act cool. “Was holding the phone away from ear a bit to get something!”  
  


_“Right... you called?”  
  
_

“Right! I just came to say that I saw your performance on the news!” Right, just got to treat it like a bandaid and rip it all off in one go! Let’s not waste any time here, the more time that goes on the more nervous I’ll get and the bigger the chance that I’ll screw this all up! _“Just… focus on the goal here, L-Arthur,”_ I told myself.  
  


_“Oh, gosh, dad look I-”  
  
_

“I loved it! You gave that bitch quite a few good hits! If only I was there we could have made it a good father-daughter tag team! I’ve got a few moves I’d like to have hit her with myself! Can’t let some random demon nobody shit all over the dreams of _my_ daughter now can I?” Yes, I’m her father, right? Fathers support their daughters and their dreams, right? Fuck, I wish I could remember what I’ve learned about Charlie right about now.  
  


_“Yeah, I’m sure- wait what?”  
  
_

“You’ve got a good haymaker form but work on your hooks a bit,” I sagely gave her some advice. “But you should work on your insults and standing up for yourself a bit more. You’re my daughter, so remember to not take shit-”  
  


_“-from other demons yeah. But can we go back a bit and talk about-”  
  
_

“Anyway,” I cut her off a bit, my grin barely managing to stay on my face during this nervewracking conversation. Was I doing alright? Does she suspect I’m somebody else? I’m hardly even paying attention to the conversation going on as I was so fucking nervous about being found out. “I just wanted to say that I’m proud of you and wish you luck on your hotel idea! And if you need anything don’t forget to visit your dear old dad! Love you! Bye!”  
  


I briefly heard a strangled noise that sounded like a gasp and a squeal had a baby before I tapped the “End Call” button and sunk back into the couch with a breath of relief.

  
Whew, that really had my nerves on fire. I hope that I came across as natural.


	5. Home Sweet Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man, I've had a lot more time at home and free time in general. Hope you enjoy.

With the news interview with Charlie over and my call to her finished I was now left with the conundrum that I had nothing to do.

I eyed the room as I sat down on the couch, the TV blaring white noise out as I did. Everything was fancy, clean, and had some sort of apple theme to it in some way. None of it was obnoxious and completely in your face about it, it was kept tasteful. Next to the TV was a tall shelf filled with expensive nicknacks and a couple of picture frames. I moved back to the desk, taking note of the crack on the window behind the chair. It must have happened when I got pissed at the note Lucifer left me because it wasn’t there before.

I rummaged around some of the drawers of the desk, looking for anything that could be useful. I found an old document that had Lucifer’s signature on it and placed it down on the desk to examine later. In another drawer right below where I found the document, I came across another note. After picking it up I immediately read it.

_Hey, look at you! You’re actually using your brain to try and get your shit together and found this as a result! As a reward, here are the usernames and passwords that I have for everything you’ll ever need. Make sure to memorize everything, destroy it when you’re done, and try not to lose it in the meantime. Trust me, you’re going to be the one who will have to deal with the headache doing that causes. I’ll also keep you around and torture you for the rest of eternity when I get back._

_XOXO,_   
_Lucifer, King of Hell_

I licked my now dry lips and carefully placed the incredibly important piece of paper down next to the other document.

“Memorize this now,” I muttered to myself, taking the threat of eternal torture seriously.

It will probably take a bit to memorize everything down so I’ll have to bring the paper everywhere with me as I do it. I’m sure that Hell’s websites have some sort of username and password saving system on them but it’s better to err on the side of caution. I looked at the other document I found and examined it. It wasn’t anything important and I figured I didn’t need anything to do with it except try and practice forging the signature.

If I’m going to be here for months I’m going to need to get that done as soon as possible. I found another blank piece of paper and got to work, the sooner I get this down the sooner I don’t have to worry about anything. I’m sure I’m going to have a lot of stress in the future so let’s try and minimize it as much as possible.

A few hours of memorizing, practicing the signature, practicing magic, and doing my best to look for as much information about Hell and demons as possible went by without any distractions or interruptions and it was honestly making me a little uncomfortable. I kept expecting some sort of trouble to rear its head while I was busy but the only things that were even remotely interesting were the whole extermination thing and the news interview. As a king, I thought I’d be getting petitions from commoners or suck-ups trying to gain favor.

Maybe nothing has happened today because a ton of people were killed off?

Checking the phone I found that it was getting pretty late, around seven in the evening, and I was getting hungry. I folded the document with the signature and the paper with the usernames and passwords up and put them into one of the inner pockets of my suit. Better to keep them safe that way.

It is time for me to try and figure out where the fuck I live.

I picked up my phone and went straight to the contacts, this thing worked just like the phones on Earth so I know that the topmost part of the contacts is yours. Then a knock came from the door and I looked up in surprise, it was the first time someone had someone come to the office since the extermination.

“Uh, Your Majesty?” a voice asked from the other side of the door.

“Come on in!~” I singsonged, every place on the internet here in Hell that I searched all told me that Lucifer was a goofy guy that liked music, singing, and was an asshole. It also fit with that I’ve experienced with my interactions with the bastard so I assumed it was all correct. “It’s quite hard to talk to someone through a door! Don’t worry, I won’t bite! Much!”

The door to my office opened and a random demon in a butler suit came in. I’m not even going to try and describe him because every single one of these demons is too fucking unique in their appearances. It gives me a headache whenever I look at a crowd of them through my window or pictures on my phone.

“Are you ready to return home, your majesty?” the butler asked, bowing.

I grinned a bit wider at the golden opportunity and got up from my seat.

“Indeed I am!” I said as I made my way over to him, tossing my cane up and catching it to keep my hands busy. “Lead the way!”

“Of course, sir,” he replied, holding the door open for me and quickly leading me to our destination. God, I love having servants. Why couldn’t I be born wealthy enough to have them?

We made our way down to the first floor of the tower we were in, the elevator making some sort of weird screeching sound in place of a pleasant ding. When we stepped out I was greeted with a vast reception area and several demons were running to and fro to get things done. One thing I’ve noticed in Hell was that a lot of furniture and other things had actual eyes on them. It was a little creepy but also kind of fascinating in its own strange way.

Many demons stopped what they were doing when they saw us and my grin was a bit more stretched to make up for my nerves when all the attention was focused on me. But I powered through the feeling and told my butler to wait by the door for a second. I walked over to one of the receptionists, a tallish demoness of some kind, skipped past the line of demons waiting for whatever reason, pushed aside the demon she was servicing and stood in front of her.

She gulped and placed the document she was working on with the other demon down, “W-What can I do for you, Your Majesty?”

“Inform someone to go to my office and fix the window I broke would you dear?” I ruffled the hair on her head with a hand, “I want it finished by tomorrow! Keep up the good work!”

I didn’t wait for her answer and just made my way to the butler that was patiently waiting for me, blowing a raspberry at the demon that I pushed who was grumbling in annoyance. Being an asshole was easy!

“Time to go!” I told the butler as he once again held the door open for me.

The limo he lead me to was white and had a golden apple as a front ornament. The interior was red, the seats were plush, and the liquor was super high quality. I poured a glass and popped another chocolate candy I took from the office into my mouth. Fuck, I’m way too hungry and while I like sweets I don’t want to stuff myself sick with them. I pushed the window to the driver’s seat down and l told the butler, “Stop by a fast-food restaurant, I don’t care which.”

I haven’t eaten all day as I haven’t managed to figure out how to summon food yet. I know I’m close and it’s annoying that it’s just out of my reach for now. With a sigh, I remembered that if I’m going to pay for food then I need money first. I did a quick pat-down and found Lucifer’s wallet in his back pocket. I opened it up and saw several bills of varying amounts, it reminded me of the US’s currency. With a shrug, I put it back in my pocket and decided the next step was to find out how much money I actually had now.

I brought up the bank app on Lucifer’s phone and brought my face close to the screen to read what I was seeing. “That’s… a lot of zeros…” I said, gaping in awe.

“Your Majesty, we’re at the restaurant,” the butler said, breaking me out of my awe.

I took a glance out of the window to see what kind of fast-food place we were at. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes and mutter, “Of course there is a McDonalds in Hell.” Well, it wasn’t actually a McDonalds but it was so close to looking like one that the distinction didn’t exactly matter. I mean what, was McDonald’s going to sue the place?

Nevertheless, I rolled the window down and ordered the first burger I saw. I wasn’t picky. The look on the drive-thru cashier’s face was priceless when he realized who I was. A good side effect of going here was finding out how the money system worked by comparing the price of the burger here to what I knew, it ended up practically like the good old U.S of A. Made things easier on me but also made me wary of some other bullshit that might happen to me to balance things out.

Which came after I was halfway through my burger.

My phone rang and I looked at the caller ID to see the words “Stolas (creepy owl bastard)” on top of a picture of some tall owl-like demon. I grimaced, he even looked creepy. I sighed and put my food down to answer the call, “Stolas! It’s been so long!”

 _“Oh I know, Lucy!”_ I silently shuddered at the way he said that name as he continued, _“And we didn’t get to talk enough during the last Goetia Demon gathering. Sallos was such a bother, it makes me wonder why we haven’t started to stop inviting him.”_

“Yeah, well, gotta have every demon there during those things, right?” I uncommittedly said as I stared at the roof of the limo while putting a few fries into my mouth after slowly dipping them into ketchup and spoke with a mouth full of food, “So, what’s up?” I wasn’t that uncultured to not know what the 72 Goetia Demons were even if I couldn’t remember most of their names...

_“My wife is throwing a party for our daughter’s birthday. My dear little Octavia is turning her first century soon and I’m sending out the invites.”_

_“Well, a birthday party does sound kind of fun…”_ I thought to myself. I shrugged and said, “Text me the date, if I don’t have anything planned I’ll swing on by.”

Best to not commit to things just yet, give some hope and a promise to return an answer later. Procrastinate!

 _“Oh, wonderful, Lucy!”_ Well, at least he sounded genuinely happy… Ugh, that makes me a bit guilty about possibly leading him on. _“I’d best hurry up now, I have so much to do. Keep in touch! Ciao!”_

I shrugged at the rather short phone call as he hung up and went back to my burger, only pausing to put in the date of his daughter’s party on the calendar phone app just in case I decide to go. Well, it’s in like a month so I have plenty of time to figure things out and get used to the ways things go around here.

I finished my meal and balled the trash up before chucking it out of the window, this is Hell so it’s not like people here give a shit about littering right? The ball of trash ended up splattered on the window of a passing car. The car swerved and crashed into a wall, but not before plowing through a fire hydrant, a street lamp pole, a vending machine, and several demons walking down the street during the brief bit of carnage. I winced and glanced back at the destruction, “Oops…”

No way in Hell I’m telling the butler to get us involved in that. Plus I’ve read that demons are hard to kill without some sort of angel weapon so the demon is probably fine barring a headache.

We finally reached the place where Lucifer lived and pulled in through a large and very clean and ornate gate. “What is with this guy and apples?” I quietly asked myself as I stared at more apple decorations on the gate. I shook my head and stared at the many patrols of dog-like demons (hellhounds I believe) that walked around the mansion grounds armed to the literal teeth. The limo pulled in front of the large front doors of the mansion that looked like it came straight from the Victorian era of history.

 _“Still not really my style, but whatever,”_ I thought to myself as I exited the limo, the butler that drove me here bowed before heading back into the vehicle and driving off. Probably to park it somewhere or something. I made my way to the front door and summoned the apple cane I love so much, I spun it around with my fingers as several servants opened the doors to let me in.

I stood right in front of the doorway and eyed the two rows of demons that greeted me with a grin that was mostly my own this time on my face as everything sort of crashed together in my head. I was super wealthy, super respected and feared among demonkind, and had super awesome magic powers. I could get away with practically anything down here.

My grin stretched a little wider and I thought to myself, _“Home sweet home.”_


	6. Messed Up, Badly

**_*Brrriiiiing!*_ **

My eyes snapped open and my fist swung down on the alarm clock that woke me up, for once in my life a smile was on my face in the morning. I threw the sheets of the bed off of me and sprung up energized, I was ready to tackle my true, official, first day of being King. I breathed in deeply and proudly strolled over to the bathroom connected to the master bedroom, snapping my fingers and watching as a ball of fire appeared in my hand. I played with the fire as I walked across the room, making sure to get practice in while I get the morning things done.

Both rooms were almost as bright as the clothes Lucifer wore and were as rich as it came. Apples were still a major theme in this mansion, they were fucking everywhere. I like apples a lot as well but come on, there are even a few paintings of them on some of the walls. One of the things I’m going to do while I’m here is commission several banana paintings to replace some of the apple artwork, maybe even some small changes here and there that aren’t noticeable at first glance and will be a constant headache when they are found. I just want to fuck with Lucifer when this deal is over with.

When the morning rituals were over, and let me tell you it is very awkward showering and peeing in a body that isn’t yours, I dressed in a similar set of clothes that I wore yesterday. A knock came at the door to my new room.

“Enter,” I said as I was staring into a full-body mirror while adjusting my bowtie, damn thing refuses to be perfect.

A cat demoness of some kind wearing glasses and business attire that I’ve never seen before comes in holding a tablet of some kind, tapping away. She looks up at me, adjusts her glasses, and says, “Good morning, your majesty, I have your meeting schedule for today ready.”

I blinked, not expecting to have actual work. Yesterday was rather free after all.

“Ah,” I said. “I thought today was going to be a free day as well.”

She shook her head, “No, your majesty. You requested yesterday to be cleared, remember?”

Shit. I shelved my distress and grinned, “Right, right! It completely slipped my mind! What do we got today?”

She looked down at her tablet, “First, a meeting with the extermination committee to go over the demons killed and the angel weapons recovered. If we hurry with breakfast we’ll get to the office with plenty of time to spare.”

I started down to the dining room after putting on my hat, the secretary demoness following me as I did. _ “I need to learn her name sometime,” _ I thought to myself as I watched her fiddle with the tablet for a bit from the corner of my eye, her claws were not really made for doing that.

“That meeting might take until lunch, the extermination this year was especially thorough and you needing your schedule mostly cleared that day didn’t help,” she commented, finally satisfied with something she did.

“ _ Wonderful _ ,” I said sarcastically, throwing the doors to the dining room open with boisterous flair. “Nothing like a long boring meeting first thing in the morning to feel blessed by God.”

She snickered and continued, “After lunch, we have two hours slotted to make time for a few demons that have petitioned for you. Don’t worry, most seem to be easy at first glance and shouldn’t take the entire two hours to go over.”

The moment I sat down the doors that lead to the kitchens opened up and a servant strolled in rolling a trolley with a couple of covered dishes on it. I snapped the napkin cloth and tucked part of it over my shirt like a bib, I’ve always wanted to do that. Noone made a comment about it so I figured it was either normal or they were too afraid to say anything. With a dramatic flair, the servant placed the largest covered dish in front of me and took the domed covering off, revealing a stack of fruity pancakes. The other two smaller dishes were revealed to be a cup of applesauce that smelled like cinnamon was mixed in for the first dish and syrup and butter were in the second.

_ “More. Fucking. Apples,” _ I silently grumbled to myself. I already mentioned that apples were great but this is getting absurd. Well, at least cinnamon and apples are a good mix. It’s hard to fuck that up.

As I went to town on breakfast the secretary continued, “Then… ugh, this asshole again?”

I stared at her while raising an eyebrow and hummed questioningly around a mouthful of food.

She sighed and pinched the bridge of her snout, “It’s nothing. This idiot has been trying to get time with you for a while but keeps fucking up the paperwork necessary or forgetting it entirely and wasting my time. It seems he managed to fuck it up again this time. How surprising...”

I rolled my hand for her to get on with it and shoved some of the applesauce in my face hole, it was really good.

“Right, well, his name is Blitzo the ‘o’ is silent… goddammit, he actually wrote that in, and he wants to pitch his company I.M.P to you to get funding. Sounds like he just has shitty business sense…”

“I see,” I said while wiping my mouth with the napkin and setting it down on the table, “I can’t say I’ve ever heard of this company before.”

“It doesn’t surprise me,” she said. “But since he screwed up again I’ll just take this off your schedule and give you some free time instead. Maybe he’ll learn from this. Now, let’s talk about the rest of the day…”

Not long after breakfast I was led straight back to the tall skyscraper place I was in yesterday, you could tell it was more important than the surrounding buildings because it was much more well maintained. It wasn’t surprising, it was clearly the center of government for the city/Hell and I guess even Hell needs its bureaucracy.

I was back in the office I woke up in and I was getting some last-minute signature practice while a couple of demons were bringing in a few extra seats. Luckily for me, Lucifer’s body did come with a lot of muscle memory built-in and the signature was already mostly up to acceptable standards. I’m just glad that I never had a super personal signature back home and needed to relearn everything, I just tended to write my name in cursive and call it that.

When the last seat was placed down I only needed to wait a few minutes for several other demons to come in with their own papers, suitcases, and general office supplies. One was even dragging in a whiteboard. I closed my eyes and inwardly groaned while making sure to keep a large fake grin plastered on my face. I was not looking forward to any of this.

The meeting started off with several of the demons listing off numbers of the double dead across the city and every other part of Hell. Yeah, turns out that this city was only in one of the circles of Hell, wasn’t the only place targeted, and you needed to take highways or trains to get to the other circles. I wasn’t planning on ever leaving the city so I decided that I didn’t care enough to figure out how that worked. The meat industry was booming, wasn’t going to think too hard on that either, and the government agents quickly scrambled to obtain the angelic weapons left behind but they were certain a number of them had already entered the black market.

Apparently angelic weapons that could permanently kill off a demon was highly illegal in Hell and only a few demons were allowed to have them, some sort of order needed to be kept I guess. But, well, basically the ones that had actual power were the ones that get to keep them, so it amounted to royalty and the really powerful demons. If anyone else was caught having them in their possession then they’d be summarily executed with the weapon and then it would be confiscated. I nearly rolled my eyes at that, I wasn’t all that surprised that was how things worked down here.

Now, naturally, I had summarized the entire meeting with these assholes. The actual meeting and presenting all of the important information was filled with bullshit that could’ve been cut to avoid a searing headache on my end. Nearing the end of the meeting I was silently chanting,  _ “Go away. Go away. Go away.” _ constantly in my head. I feared that my resolve would break and I’d go mad and torch them in a fit of rage.

I got the break I needed when lunch came around and when I was alone I let out a breath of relief. I wasn’t out of the woods just yet but hopefully, the rest of the things I needed to do today is less stressful. Lunch was pizza, which was good, and the petitioners were pretty easy to handle. I just needed to sign off on anything that I approved of, only one of them ended up getting a signature though. The others were denied or denied and thrown out of a window while on fire because they managed to make me mad enough to lose reason, I made sure to keep enough sense to do that last one out of my office.

I don’t want to talk about it.

I now had free time to do whatever I wanted. With the way my day was going I wasn’t looking forward to it, these meetings with people were annoying. As I was feeling miserable a single great idea came to me, why not just ditch and go explore the city and have fun? I briefly smirked and stood up from my desk, I began to pace back and forth in front of the window with my hands behind my back as I mulled over what to do.

First, I needed a way to get out of here and down into the city.

I contemplatively glanced at the window, biting my lip as I thought over simply jumping out of it. I know that I wouldn’t die, that fact is etched into my brain because I knew that if a simple fall out of a window would kill Lucifer of all people then he wouldn’t have ruled Hell for long. No, even if I knew that I wouldn’t die the fact that falling from such a height is scary enough to trigger my human sense of danger and fear is enough to put me off the idea. Plus, pain is still a thing and who knows how long it might take to regenerate from whatever wounds I got from it if I got any at all.

I don’t have a rope or any fabric to tie together to scale my way down. This idea also lumps into my healthy fear of falling.

The front door is also out. Nobody would actually stop me, naturally, but I’d still have to talk to people or push pushy people aside. There might be some ramifications or annoyance that I’d have to deal with if I did that, what if one of those people is some important demon? Sure, I’m a king and all but a king still has to deal with higher society and I’d rather not make any enemies right now.

Plus it is too obvious an escape in general, I want flashier and funner.

So, in my mind that naturally leaves teleporting. I mean, why should I not be able to teleport or at least make some sort of portal? I took my place in the middle of the office and took a random martial arts stance I once saw in a movie in order to prepare myself. I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply as I gathered magic in my hands, I held it for a few moments before my eyes snapped open and I shouted “Hwah!” while thrusting my hands forward. Nothing happened.

I tsked in annoyance and began waving my hands around in several different complicated motions while thinking about teleporting somewhere. Nothing seemed to work except that I managed to send a beam of fire out of my hand and through the now partially melted window. That was pretty cool and I got a bit sidetracked as I started getting a feel for shooting fire beams out of my hands.

“Maybe I’m going about this wrong,” I said to myself. “I’m trying to force it out of my hands, maybe I need a focus and an action?”

I gasped as an understanding went through my brain and quickly summoned my apple cane into my hand, not wasting a second I focused the magic into the cane and watched as the apple on top glowed an eerie red. I grinned widely and brought my hand up, fingers ready to snap as doing so just felt like the right thing to do. Just as I moved my fingers I jumped in surprise.

The door had knocked loudly and I was too focused on what I was doing, my secretary walked in, “Sir, it’s time-”

She didn’t finish as I had already completed the teleporting magic. Her widened eyes when she saw me was the last thing I saw before a flash of red erupted from my fingers and I found myself in a place I had never seen before. I looked around in confusion as I was aiming for a place filled with more people.

The room I ended up in had several unopened boxes surrounding a bed and the room itself needed a good cleaning. It was far too dusty and several spiderwebs clung to the corners of the room. I grimaced at the filth and went straight for the door, deciding that whatever was on the other side of it was certainly better than in here.

I was correct, the hallway the room was connected to was much cleaner. The place still seemed like it was mostly abandoned and falling apart, but I was certain that it once held a kind of fancy charm to it. I hummed as I walked down the hallway, running a finger across a railing that overlooked a large lobby. I brought my fingers up and rubbed them together, watching the dust float in the air. I stood in a little half-circle outcropping that gently poked out from the upper level in order to get a better look at the lobby.

Most of the lobby could still be considered to have seen better days, one of the doors to the place was even haphazardly thrown together as if it was blown off its hinges. The only exception to the whole thing was a fireplace and the bar that also looked like it was the front desk?

“Interesting design choice… but this is Hell so whatever,” I muttered to myself as I went back to looking around. While this place might have seen better days it is clearly still lived in. But I like it, while it might have lost its original charm it gained something else that it might not have had before. A personality.

“Who-wha?!” a voice randomly grunted and slurred. I raised an eyebrow and glanced back at the front desk/bar to see some cat demon thing with wings shoot out from behind the desk holding its head, likely from some drunken binge. “Who the fuck is there?! I got a gun and I ain’t afraid to use it!” He proceeded to pull out a pistol from nowhere and point it frantically around the lobby, still clearly a bit drunk.

I let him do that for a few seconds before speaking up, “It’s good that you’re so protective of this place but when you’re looking for threats you might want to not forget to look up as well.”

Without missing a beat he pointed the gun up to where I was and yelled, “Who the hell are yo-?!”

His eyes widened and he sobered up a bit as he slowly lowered his gun in surprise.

I think the ridiculousness of the whole situation made me not worry much about the whole “pointing a gun at me” thing, his face was priceless enough and I couldn’t help but chuckle as I made my way to the staircase. “Please forgive me for interrupting your nap, Mr…?”

“Uh, Husk. The name’s Husk,” he said while putting away the gun, the initial surprise fading away as he followed me with his eyes.

I didn’t say anything else as I continued to examine the place, slowly making my way down the large staircase. As I got down to the first floor I noticed several paintings and other pictures, many of which had two familiar people in them. There were also a lot of apple-themed things going on around here.

My body froze a bit as it all came together,  _ “Oh, shit, don’t tell me-” _

“What the hell are you yelling about?!” A new voice that I didn’t recognize yelled out, filling me with some hope that maybe this is just some sort of coincidence. “We’re busy trying to get this place working you drunken-”

I turned around and saw a vaguely familiar demon, it was the huge amount of white hair and that bow that was the most obvious. She was rather pretty and was dressed in a… provocative style. Her face was also looking a bit white compared to her overall greyish skin and she took a step back when my gaze turned to her. Alright, so maybe I was a little mad that my hope was so easily crushed and I accidentally channeled a bit of that into my face. Considering that demons were apparently prone to have some sort of display of power whenever they get mad I couldn’t imagine that I looked at all pleasant to be around.

“Vaggie come on, it’s just a bit of yelling. You don’t need to-” then Charlie herself came into the lobby followed by that Angel guy. “Dad?”

I was frozen stiff when I heard her voice, my smile stuck in place. It was confirmed, I somehow teleported to the last place that I ever wanted to be. Maybe it was to be expected when I didn’t have a clear enough location in my head when I did it. I take everything back that I said earlier, send me back to my office so that I can deal with stupid demons all day. I’ve learned my lesson.

“You actually came to the hotel?” Charlie’s eyes watered a bit and she was smiling so hard she needed to bite her lip to keep from splitting her face open with the grin that was clearly trying to come out. “Y-you said that you’d never set foot in a place that was designed to fail… What you said on the phone yesterday, was it true?”

Goddammit, that moment of brainless and whimsical action has really screwed me over. I have to follow through with this now or else I’d look like the greatest asshole in the world. Just… the sheer hope on her face is enough to kill a man twenty times over. Swallowing a bit I took back control of my nerves and walked over to Charlie.

She was taller than me but I kept my grin up as I stared into her eyes, “It’s true, Charlie.”

When she hugged me so hard that it felt like I was being crushed in half I still felt like an asshole even as I followed through with this situation I’ve put myself into and returned the hug. It’s barely even been a day here and I already massively fucked up, I feel like I’ve aged several years over the past like thirty hours.


End file.
